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Friday, 30 January 2015

Few other fashion experiences provide a sensory overload like haute couture, and that was certainly true of Raf Simons’s absolutely exquisite and electric (and not to mention playfully erotic) spring 2015 haute couture collection for Christian Dior.
Simons has proved himself quite the master at creating the perfect
mise-en-scène for his couture outings. Here, in a towering edifice
erected slap bang in the middle of the stately gardens of the Musée
Rodin, was a show space constructed out of gleaming white girders and
gantries in some insane formations, then carpeted pretty much everywhere
with a bois du rose tapis the trippy kaleidoscopic
vibe amplified by mirrors reflecting the set into infinity. The
hallucinogenic effect of all this does, of course, draw
all-too-delicious comparisons with the hothouse environment that couture
is created in, because after all, where else can one’s wildest,
craziest, most fantastical impulses become a kind of reality?

Except, speaking to Simons before the show, it seems he was concerned
with much more material concerns, quite literally. As in, just how much
can you push fabric developments and embellishment techniques to create
something truly magical? Goodness knows he tried ... and succeeded.
There were beautiful pleated skirts and dresses of dramatically full
proportions, striated with different colored ribbons. Guipure lace
became a base on which to layer and layer and then layer again with rich
encrustations of sequins, which were sometimes mixed with that spongey
wool beloved by André Courrèges et al, rendered in a series of short,
sixties-esque dresses. And in what looked like a moment of channeling
Peter Max, there were acid-patterned, vividly colored knit jumpsuits
which, yes, said Simons, will be available made to measure just like any
other couture ensemble.

Still, to think that this collection is only surface would belie the
depth Simons brought to his creative process. Speaking to him further,
it became evident that he was also thinking about material culture,
specifically that of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and what each
decade means to him, namely romanticism (1950s), experimentation
(1960s), and liberation (1970s), riffing on everything from William
Klein’s Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? to Kansai Yamamoto’s
psychedelic catsuits for David Bowie circa 1972′s Ziggy Stardust Tour.
Many of the looks bore the hallmarks of different decades: viz a dress
of very Monsieur Dior volumes spliced with curving cutouts on the body,
akin to those seen on some insane look a body-painted Veruschka would
have worn around the time of the Summer of Love, paired with glam-rock
kinky wet-look leather boots resting on silver frame heels.

And there was yet more to all this: Deep down in this collection was
Simons’s ongoing exploration of female sexuality, to which his choice of
time frame was important, given it went through some radical and
far-reaching changes from the fifties to the seventies. But maybe going
further and further into this collection doesn’t really matter here, not
when what was evident to the naked eye was quite so fantastic.

Discover the DIOR Spring 2015 Haute Couture show at the end of this post!

For spring 2015 haute couture Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are in the mood for love.
Their inspiration board was lined with quotes from Shakespeare, bits and
pieces of Dante'sInferno, and the paintings of Marc Chagall,
hopeless romantics all. Chagall, in particular, captivated them. "He had
an incredible life, very hard, but he maintained his optimistic
vision," Piccioli said.